


Religio

by tibeyg



Series: Pornalot 2017 [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Historical, Crying, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lictors, M/M, Passages from Livy, Sacrificial (animal) Blood and Gore, Weird Roman Religious Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 09:44:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11987238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tibeyg/pseuds/tibeyg
Summary: When their legions falter, Arthur provides the one solution.





	Religio

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Pornalot 2018 Challenge #4: Bound.
> 
> This fic implies a major character death at the end, but does not portray it. There is also brief description of animal blood and entrails as part of a sacrifice ritual.
> 
> I have used some Latin terminology here; sharp-eyed Latinists will notice that they have not been declined and are left in the nominative case. For that, I remain unsorry.

Latin: _re_ (again) + _ligare_ (to bind)

_‘The omens are in favour,’ says the haruspex. His victim had been lively; its spurted blood is clotting down the front of his toga. He taps at the still-steaming liver, circling out regions that the untrained eye cannot distinguish._

_‘Then it must be done,’ says the man._

‘You’re insane,’ spat Merlin. He set the fasces onto the desk, taking unconscious care with the protruding axe’s blade, and flung the crimson sagum from his shoulders. 

‘Don’t,’ said Arthur.

‘I’m not letting you do this.’ Merlin whirled around, gripped his shoulders; shook him, hard. ‘It’s my duty to protect you. I took the vow. It’s my –’

‘And it’s _mine_ to protect Rome. The people –’ 

_They bring his toga praetexta and the pontifex. They drape a fold of the heavy wool over his head and cover a fist with the purple border. The pontifex bids him stand on a spear, and moves his covered fist to his chin._

_‘You are certain?’ asks the pontifex._

_‘I am,’ says the man._

‘How could you be so…so…’ Merlin saw the careful _dignitas_ slip from Arthur’s face like a mime’s mask, and his chest throbbed at the sight.

‘I’m sorry,’ Arthur whispered. He took Merlin’s hands. In the lamplight, he glowed with the golden earnestness of a man doomed. ‘I’m sorry we never –’

‘I can’t lose you,’ Merlin’s fury was crumpling, folding in on itself like molten ore.

_‘Then repeat after me,’ says the pontifex. ‘Janus, Jupiter, father Mars…’_

_The man’s face is drained of blood, but his voice throbs with_ auctoritas _. ‘Janus, Jupiter, father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, Divine Novensiles, Di Indigetes, and Di Manes…’_

‘The gods demand this,’ said Arthur. ‘Our impiety will doom us. Our enemies have only multiplied –’

‘Fuck your gods.’

Arthur shook his head. ‘You don’t understand them, not having been raised here. They have their methods, their precisions, their thirsts.’

Merlin kissed him then. He clutched the golden skin, memorised the curves of musculature, tasted the desperate little sounds Arthur made into his mouth.

‘One last time,’ said Arthur. The skin around his eyes looked very pink. ‘Please, my –’

‘Don’t say that.’ Merlin kissed him. ‘Don’t say it like that.’ 

_‘…I invoke and worship you, I ask for and bear favour, as you may further the strength and victory of the Roman people, and may you afflict the enemies of the Roman people with terror, fear, and death...’_

He bared and lay Arthur on the cot, pink blushing into his golden skin like dawn spilling into the sky, before pulling off his own tunic. It was too squashed and rickety for the two of them, the military-issue mattress a lumpy affair. Arthur surged up to hold and kiss him with a methodical thoroughness, sketching the line of his cheekbones with execrated thumbs.

‘Do not weep,’ he said in a gust of air. ‘I want you to…’ He swallowed. He reached out and brought between their bodies the terracotta jar of lamp oil. ‘Do it to me.’

_‘…just as I called you, thus for the Republic, army, legions, and auxiliaries, I devote the enemies’ legions and auxiliaries to the Di Manes and Tellus – with myself.’_

‘I can’t,’ Merlin said. ‘You – you’re a _vir_ , a _consul_ –’

‘Are you not too a man?’ In the meagre lamplight, the guileless blue of Arthur’s eyes flickered in shadow. He butted his golden head against Merlin’s shoulder. ‘I want to have me before the gods do.’

How could you resist a request like that? Merlin pushed his legs up to expose the pink moue, tighter than a Vestal’s cunt, and opened it with methodical finger after finger. He was so tight, it took an age – the centuries flowed by; armies fought and died, cities rose and crumbled, nations grew and shrunk. A thousand years glided past, and they grew old and sat in the dying sunshine, wrinkled fingers entwined – 

‘Please don’t weep,’ Arthur said, but he was weeping himself. ‘I need you, I need you now –’

Merlin nudged inside. Arthur blossomed around him. It was a sight to behold, the tear-blurred gold-pink haze of his body, his kissed-dry lips opening around ecstatic gasps. _Next time_ … thought Merlin, then realised there would be none, and the tears soaked into the scruff on Arthur’s chest.

He didn’t know how long they spent joined, mingling their sweat and spit and souls, rocking gently into each other. The lamps’ tongues of flame fizzled out, the reservoirs of tears dried. Their orgasm was an afterthought, and left them inert and interlaced.

_They gird his toga about his armour and hoist him onto the awaiting horse. He looks out to the distant battlefield, a chaos of glinting iron and crimson wool lost among the swirling dust, and the more sinister shadow of looming men beyond. He looks down at the gathered men: the priests, the non-combatants, the lictors with the axes in their fasces._

They lay in the humid darkness.

‘I’ll stay tonight.’ Merlin kissed the skin behind Arthur’s ear. ‘The lads will understand.’

‘They knew all along, didn’t they?’ Arthur chuckled. ‘When Percival… _ah_ , of course.’ Then he stilled. ‘I want to keep you inside,’ he whispered. ‘I can feel it dripping out, but I want it – you – to be there when I go.’

They kissed again, languid. Now the initial grief was wearing, Merlin felt pride swell alongside it in his heart, bittersweet, for the brave, beautiful man who lay in his arms, so selfless and sublime. All his. ‘No one will forget what you will have done for us.’

‘Then I will live long in men’s minds.’

_His gaze holds momentarily on one of the lictors, dark and tousle-haired. He shifts in the saddle as though in shyness, then turns away. He draws his gladius and readies for gallop._

_‘For the people,’ he says._

_They watch him go, toga flapping behind, like a blaze of divinity. Then the lictors turn to trudge the news home._

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> The ritual that Arthur performs here is an ancient, ancient Roman one called _devotio_. It was rarely performed and most accounts of it date to the 5th and 4th century BC. The idea was that if the Romans were losing, one of the men would devote himself and the opposing army as a sacrifice to the gods, then plunge himself into the enemy's midst and lead the Roman army to victory at the cost of his own life.
> 
> The _devotio_ on which I based this one was performed by P Decius Mus (cos 340) in a battle during Rome's expansion in Italy, recorded in Livy's _Ab Urbe Condita_ 8.9. The speech Arthur performs is (allegedly) Decius', as recorded in Livy, and the translation into English and edits are mine.
> 
> Roman religion was not "faith-based", but relied heavily on ritual and performance. The Romans did not conceive of having a relationship with gods. It was based entirely on the perfect execution of a ritual, and was in many ways a very legalistic, transactory sort of religion.
> 
> Lictors were the "bodyguards" of Roman magistrates who held imperium (i.e. power to interpret the law - thus, consuls, praetors, pronconsuls, propraetors, etc.). They followed these magistrates literally everywhere, and carried fasces, which were bundles of rods tied together, symbolic of the magistrate's power. Outside the sacred boundary of Rome, an axe was added to the fasces. Lictors were exempt from military service and often freedmen.
> 
> Roman attitudes to homoerotic behaviour were less "liberal" than the Greeks'. It was considered unacceptable for a Roman citizen male to be the "receptive partner" of a sexual act, as this would socially denigrate him, but there was no issue with him being the "active partner".
> 
> The etymology I have provided for "religio" is not confirmed, but theorised by historians. The word "ligare" also gives us "obligation" and "ligament".
> 
> If you like the enemies-to-lovers trope then check out [my gf's gay novel](http://valeaida.tumblr.com/post/149576789996/an-elegy-info-post), illustrated by me!


End file.
